The long-awaited report on how police handled protests during the 1997 APEC summit in Vancouver blames a litany of RCMP bunglings for prompting the violence, which led to the infamous pepper-spraying.
Indeed, former judge Ted Hughes found such widespread police incompetence that in some cases, he said, the police violated the demonstrators' constitutional rights.
The thick report that Mr. Hughes prepared for the Commission for Public Complaints Against the RCMP concluded that "police performance did not meet an acceptable and expected standard of competence, professionalism and proficiency."
The report, which took more than a year to write, was accidentally made public yesterday when a courier delivered it to a television network in Quebec.
The protesters were angry that they were kept away from world leaders, including then Indonesian president Suharto, and alleged that Prime Minister Jean Chrétien's office interfered to ensure that they would not be seen or heard.
The report does not blame Mr. Chrétien for the melee but does lambaste the national police service.
After a scathing analysis of what the inquiry head called dozens of police mistakes, Mr. Hughes presented 21 recommendations that he says should be implemented because "police in Canada and around the world will face increasing challenges as they are called upon to police international gatherings that attract growing dissent."
After the 1997 Asia Pacific Economic Co-operation Conference wrapped up, the inquiry dealt with 52 complaints that protesters lodged against the RCMP, alleging unwarranted arrests, the unnecessary use of pepper spray, and the violation of constitutional rights.
Mr. Hughes found that most of the substandard police conduct could be attributed to poor planning for the protection of delegates by the RCMP.
The problems included last-minute assignments to key security positions of people who were unprepared and who, at times, ended up working at cross purposes. They also included failure to realize that the grounds of Green College, where some of the violence took place, would be a gathering place for protesters, and the fact that there was no one in command at the well-publicized noon rally.
"My inability to determine who made the all-important decision to allow protesters to have unobstructed access to the security fence tells a great deal about the state of readiness of the police to meet the challenges of the day," Mr. Hughes wrote. He added that he believes the protest would have been non-violent had it not been for the decision to allow demonstrators near the fence.
But key to the RCMP's problems was the decision to divide and separate the planning from the operational side of policing the event. According to Mr. Hughes, those who knew the most about the policing plan were not there to implement it.
And "sheer folly" is how he describes the failure to put well-trained police officers at the flagpole hot spot during the noon protest rally.
Other police errors include the lack of a contingency plan on how to deal with the protest, allowing the Tibetan flag to be removed, female protesters to be strip searched in public areas, and the blocking of exit routes from the university campus that resulted in "confusion and chaos in the APEC Command Centre."
Clearly overwhelmed by the mistakes are the few things the police did that were justified and necessary, Mr. Hughes said. They include the use of pepper sprays and arrests when the fence collapsed at the noon rally.
Ultimately, however, the police erred in not anticipating there could be trouble, he said.
"Specifically, for 95 per cent of the time, they did not anticipate tremendous problems. Their level of concern did not rise until 'towards the end,' " Mr. Hughes says in the report.
Jaggi Singh, one of the protesters arrested, dismissed the report as a useless "historical artifact" because it failed to hold the RCMP or the Prime Minister accountable.
"It's a good lesson in how governments engage in cover-ups," Mr. Singh said in an interview last night.
"This is a legal cover-up of how the police and government repress protests."
He said the document is already out of date and that police repression at international gatherings has actually intensified since the Vancouver APEC conference, citing violent clashes at Quebec City and Genoa as examples.
"What was a scandal in 1997 is the norm in 2001," Mr. Singh said.
Mr. Chrétien's office referred calls to the Solicitor-General's department, which is responsible for the RCMP. Athana Mentzelopoulos, a spokeswoman, said the department had received the report but would not comment until it had been reviewed.
Conservative Leader Joe Clark said Parliament should set up a formal committee to look into the findings. He also wants the House of Commons to order an independent inquiry into the Quebec City summit this spring so that the federal government can make sure next summer's Group of Eight summit in Alberta is well handled.
"We need to have the best possible information in how we should be dealing with this," he said. "Clearly things have gone wrong with the last two [summits]"
Like Mr. Singh, NDP MP Svend Robinson, who has raised concerns in Parliament about Mr. Chrétien's involvement in APEC security arrangements, criticized the report for failing to deal with the Prime Minister's role. "The report did not deal with the fundamental issue of greatest concern to Canadians: the role of the Prime Minister and his staff in giving political direction," he said. "The report has not provided any answers."
Maude Barlow, the chairwoman of the activist Council of Canadians, said yesterday that, over all, she was content with the report because it was fair and revealed an in-depth probe into police behaviour at the APEC protest.
The report will be influential in antiglobalization protests in the future, she said, because it sets standards for police behaviour and forces governments to recognize the right of protesters to express themselves. Inquiry recommendations
The RCMP should ask the Canadian government to codify the nature and extent of police independence regarding law enforcement and the responsibility for providing security at demonstrations;
Records be kept of planning meetings between the RCMP and federal government officials;
Checks and balances and accountability should be ensured by dividing roles and responsibilities among various positions in the command structure;
Police officials who help plan major public events should also be involved during the event;
University campuses should not be used as the venue for major protests where delegates are to be sequestered and protected from protesters;
The RCMP should set up and train Quick Response Teams to be called upon in such emergencies;
Priority should be given to briefing police personnel at major events;
The RCMP should record the need for strip searches and advise arresting officers to take into account the purpose of the protest, its location and the extent of violence involved;
RCMP detachments should provide a private area for conducting personal searches of prisoners.
When releasing vulnerable prisoners, police should consider the time of day and distance from the place of arrest;
The public complaints procedure should be reviewed and simplified to include taking evidence by affidavit;
The RCMP should brook no intrusion or interference from foreign diplomats or consular officials.